5 live News Specials

Simon King and Clare Nasir look back on the weird weather of 2018 - revisiting the 'Beast from the East' and our unusually scorching summer.

For many, Christmas is for spending time close to loved ones. But in 1968, astronauts Frank Borman, Bill Anders and Jim Lovell would spend their Christmas Day further away from home than any human had ever done before. With the help of archive material, former NASA employees, author Robert Kurson and the astronauts themselves, Anna Foster remembers the Apollo 8 mission on its 50th anniversary. The mission was everything to Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman. For him, beating the Soviets in the space race and the safety of his crew were paramount. William Anders was the rookie of the crew. Bill had never been to space before, and he was excited to document and remember every last second of the experience. In new interviews, they share their memories, the mission and its legacy with Anna. In the year leading up to the flight, America had faced some of it’s toughest times. The Vietnam war appeared unwinnable, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were murdered and riots broke out on streets across the country. The American people needed something to change. NASA's moon programme was over budget and behind schedule, three astronauts had died the previous year aboard an Apollo capsule and the Soviet Union was readying its own massive booster for a possible lunar mission. Then, at the end of one the worst years in US history, with the odds stacked against them, NASA ripped up its rulebook to send three men to the far side of the moon.

Presenter Laura Whitmore, like many Millennials, is beginning to question what she believes in. Is she still the Catholic she was brought up as? Over the course of this documentary she goes on a journey of discovery to find out if she is losing her religion, and if so, can she find what else is out there? Laura speaks to those with faith about their beliefs, and to young people who claim to have no religion to see how they are now finding their spirituality elsewhere.

At the beginning of 2018, BBC Radio 5 Live decided to be the station that shone a light on Spoken Word. To highlight the huge wealth of young talent currently in the UK - the experiences they go through every day and crafting that into beautifully, honest reflections of their world. We focused on some of big news stories and talking points ranging from poverty to mental health, knife crime to Brexit and the Royal Wedding to the FA Cup Final and asked some of the UK’s emerging and established artists to write about how they see these stories. To look back on our Year in Spoken Word, Afternoon Edition's Nihal Arthanayake invited poet and musician Hussain Manawer and author Chidera Eggerue to review our past 12 months.

Writer, performer and care leaver Lemn Sissay looks into attitudes to children in the care system.